You didn't say goodbye
by carbyluv4ever
Summary: This story takes place Post “The show must go one.” Carter is leaving and Abby wants her goodbye.


**You didn't say goodbye**

**This story takes place Post- "The show must go one." Carter is leaving and Abby wants her goodbye. It is sort of long and sad. Tell me what you think. Enjoy.  **

There she stood, hesitating on his doorstep. "It's early yet," she thought, "I shouldn't wake him. He'll be up soon enough." She turns to sit down and wait on the steps, but the door opens to her surprise. She spins around to see him, adorned in traveling bags, staring startled at her.

"Abby, what… what are you doing here?" he stammers.

She looks at her feet and sighs. Better sooner than later right? Get it over with.

"You didn't say goodbye" she whispers almost inaudible.

"What?" he asks. She repeats her statement louder and clearer. He looks confused.

"What do you mean I didn't say goodbye?" but all he receives in response is Abby's famous eye roll. He questions her again, "Abby, what do you mean?"

"You said goodbye to Luka, to Susan, to Pratt, hell you even said some parting words to Morris, but nothing to me."

"Oh," is his only reply.

She shifts her weight onto her other foot. "I just… I just thought I deserved something you know… after all that has happened. I thought I was important enough for a goodbye."

He is silent, amazed by her boldness, saddened by his own neglect.

"But I guess I was wrong. I made a mistake to come here." She says, misinterpreting her silence for coldness. "I thought we were friends again, but apparently not… I'll just go." She turns to leave.

As she walks down the steps, "Abby, wait" echoes loud and clear on the silent street. He has found his voice. It is strong, pleading and determined. She turns around and stares deep into his eyes. He shifts his weight. Now it's his turn to be uncomfortable.

"It's not that you're not important… it's that you deserve more than a goodbye." She looks at him, wonderment and confusion filling her eyes. "What I mean is that with all our history I felt I was cheating you with a simple goodbye. I thought it would be better this way. Just to leave…"

"Like you always do" she mutters under her breath.

"What?"

"Nothing, never mind."

"No what did you say" he demands.

"I said just leave without so much as a word, like you always do. I mean why should I expect something different. This isn't the first time you left me without a goodbye." Anger and bitterness are mounting in her voice.

"What?" He is taken aback by her comments.

"You heard me" she snaps. "You've done this enough times before; I should have seen it coming. Hell I should have marked it on my calendar. Carter leaving, no goodbye."

"Abby…"

"No, I don't even know what I came here tonight. I knew you wouldn't say goodbye. And still I came. I was curious. I wanted to know why you always leave me without a goodbye. Why it always ends with you sneaking off into the darkness." Silence fills the air. "No good reason? Oh well. Goodbye John Carter. Have a nice life." She stomps off.

"Abby, don't do this. I didn't say goodbye because I wanted to remember us differently. Happy. You at work. Not here fighting."

"Well this is what you got."

"I just… wanted…"

"You wanted what, John? You needed your last memory of me to be working hard in the ER. For what? For you to feel better about yourself. Less guilty. Oh, poor Abby, she's fine now. I didn't really screw her over. Look she's fine."

"No that's not it!"

"Yes it is! If you leave without saying goodbye then you can continue your fantasy that you did right by me."

"That's not fair."

"None of this is!" A fuming silence fills the air before Abby opens her mouth, this time speaking softly. "You know you're not Mark."

"What?"

"You're not Mark. You don't get to leave without saying goodbye. You're not dying. We accept his way of leaving because we didn't know it would be that last time we would see him. We know you are leaving and probably not coming back. You need to say goodbye… And you did, to everyone except me. Am I not worth it John? Am I not important enough?"

"No you are."

"Then I deserve something!" Abby looks at him tears brimming, fists clenched. He stares back, intently. Wishing to embrace her and wipe the tears away, but restraining himself. She's not his to comfort anymore.

"You do." Abby stares, intrigued by his response. Carter looks away and then looks back. "God, Abby, I've spent the whole week thinking of how to say goodbye to you. Should it be simple and quick or long with tears? I couldn't decide. A simple goodbye seemed too little, too insignificant for what we've gone through. A long one seemed unlike us, when we usually leave the most important stuff unsaid anyways. I don't know. I just thought no goodbye would be easiest. The least painful. I would leave and we could both move on with our lives."

"But no goodbye makes it incomplete" she whispers.

"I know… I know… I just… I mean, God Abby I loved you. I wanted to marry you!"

"You never asked"

"I thought you would say no"

"No, you backed down. I said I thought people could never really change and you backed down. You were afraid. You wanted to change me, as much as you said you didn't, you did. So you backed down that night."

Carter looks down at the ground, scuffing the toe of his shoe on the concrete.

"It doesn't matter, you were right not to propose. All I do is disappoint you."

"You don't disappoint me."

"Yes I do. Always have, always will. I am a walking, talking disappointment. You better not get to close."

"Why are you always such a pessimist?"

"Have you seen my life? Look around." She brings her arms out to her sides and spins around. "Disappointment is all over. My life is one fatal black cloud of disappointments and pain. You thought my pessimism was a routine I did. One that you thought could be broken…. But instead you added to the disappointment and pain."

"I'm sorry."

"For what? Not proposing, me disappointing you, my life sucking… or maybe for you adding to the pain in my life."

"I don't know"

"Well it doesn't matter. After that night thins got so complicated. My brother, your grandma. And then you leaving."

"Well I was hurt and lost and confused and I needed you, but you weren't there. You ran off to your brother when I need you most."

"I told you John, my life revolves around them. I'm the one that has to go every time I get a call. I'm the one they depend on to be there. My life is on hold. It will forever and always be on hold. I told you that. You didn't listen. You never listen."

"I didn't want to believe it"

"No you only wanted to believe that you could change me. That you could help me and my family. Tat you could make us into something better, something you could be proud of, something your family would accept into their high privileged world."

"Hey!"

"No it's true. And what's worse is that you promised me. You promised me you'd be there. That I could lean on you. That we'd get through it together. You promised me you'd never leave… And then you up and leave for Africa, not once but twice!"

"Well I came back and you were hostile towards me."

"I had every right to be! You wouldn't have even told me. I found out because I caught you leaving."

"The second time I left to get Luka."

"And you found him. You could have come back with him. But you didn't. You wrote me a break-up letter and stayed in the Congo."

"What was I supposed to do? I thought we were over."

"Whatever. But you know what the worse part was, the letter was read by everyone- my friends, my colleagues- everyone! Everyone knew poor Abby had been broken up with. Do you know how embarrassing that was?"

"No."

"That's right you don't. And then you brought back your pregnant girlfriend to parade through the ER. Do you know how much that hurt me? That was another slap across the face."

"I'm sorry."

"No you're not. If you were or had been you would have never brought her. You wanted to hurt me, like I hurt you."

"No I didn't. I didn't even realize how you would feel."

"Oh, that's nice to hear." Sarcasm filled her voice.

"Abby, I'm sorry about that. The leaving was meant to hurt, but not the other stuff."

"Well it hurt me none the less."

"I'm sorry."

"Well I should have expected it, right? I mean it's the dance we do. I hurt you, you hurt me, it's a vicious cycle and it has always been turning." Carter looks up at her. "It's been like this from the beginning. I hurt you by going out with Luka. I dump him and then you hurt me by rejecting me. We finally get together and manage to hurt each other over and over throughout that year. Then you leave, hurting me and I hurt you by asking for my key. And in return you hurt me one more time by leaving…. But you know what you're leaving for good now. No more chances for hurting each other anymore. … Which is good because I'm sick of being hurt."

There's a silence as Carter contemplates all she has said. Abby breaks it after a minute. "I didn't come to fight" she says softly, "I came to know why I didn't receive a goodbye. And I want to know now." She looks away and stomps her feet in the chilly air. Carter gazes out onto the silent street. The sunning is starting to rise in the east, illuminating the dark sky with the colors of a new day. A car drives past causing the air to blow Abby's long brown hair. She grabs a stray strand and shoves it behind her ear. She looks around and catches Carter staring at her. "So?" she questions, "I'm waiting."

"I… I didn't say goodbye" he stumbles "because… because I was afraid of this."

"Afraid of what?"

"Of fighting, of not being able to let go. I though if I could make a clean break, I would forget. I would forget about you, about us, about our history, but mostly how much I loved you." Abby looks at him startled. Carter looks away. "I loved you Abby. I loved you so much. I didn't think it was possible to love someone as much as I loved you. I was drawn to you, like a moth to a deadly flame."

Abby looks down after the last line, realizing its meaning. "I loved you and I got hurt, badly. I didn't think I could be hurt so badly if I loved so much. But I was wrong. And so hurt. I pushed all my feelings down until I almost couldn't feel them anymore. But every time I saw you they would rise up. The hurt, the pain, but most of all the insurmountable love. And I knew that if I saw you before I left, the feeling would come back. So I didn't come to say goodbye. I couldn't deal with it. To know I could never love anyone else like I loved you… not even Kem."

Abby looks up, questioning him with her eyes.

"So I'm sorry Abby. I'm sorry I didn't say goodbye. You deserved it. You deserve the world. You are important- more important than you'll ever know. So here's your goodbye. Goodbye Abigail Lockhart. I'll miss you. I'll think about you- sometimes with tears, sometimes with smiles, always with love. Insurmountable, unconditional, uncontrollable love that I will never be able to feel for another woman again." A tinge of bitterness is in his voice. "You'll be a good doctor. You have the smarts and the best beside manner I've seen. And though you will be busy as a doctor, I hope you don't make your career your life. I hope you take your life off hold. It doesn't have to be on hold forever. You are just choosing it to be that way. I think you think it's easier to keep people from getting to close that way. But in the end it only drives people away. And lastly I hope you think about me once in awhile, because I will be thinking about you. I love you forever and for always."

By this time Abby has broken down crying. Carter takes her into a hug and kisses her on the cheek. But then, as if controlled by fate, his lips find hers and kiss that's more than friendly takes over. Passion, suppressed for so long, overcomes both of them and the kiss deepens, but then he breaks it.

"You know I loved you too." She whispers. He doesn't reply, but instead turns and grabs his bags. He walks down the steps and turns at the gate.

"Goodbye Abby. Good luck"

Then he turns and walks out the gate and down the street. The sun is rising as he walks towards the east, disappearing into its brilliance. Abby crumbles into a heap on the steps and the last thing you hear is the gate swinging shut.


End file.
